The Regina Police Service would like the public and business employees to be aware of a new credit card fraud.
The Regina Police Service has seen a significant rise in credit card frauds, where the suspect attempts to use a non-working credit card. The pin pad indicates a chip malfunction when the chip is inserted into the device. The employee will usually try to swipe the non-working credit card which will again malfunction. The suspect will then persuade the employee to manually enter the card number. The employee is given the number verbally by the suspect, or the employee may hand the pin pad to the suspect, so that the suspect can enter the number. The number used is a credit card number that the suspect has memorized before entering the establishment, not the card they have given the employee.
The manually entered number works at the time of the transaction, but will eventually be charged back to the business as a fraudulent credit card number. All these frauds result in chargebacks to the company or store, so it is in the best interest of businesses to educate themselves and their staff not to enter any credit card numbers manually. Always use the security features offered by the chip or the card swipe technology.
To report the existence or recurrence of a scam, contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (1-888-495-8501). Anyone who has been a victim of this type of scam, or any other, is asked to come in to the Front Desk of the Regina Police Service to make a report. More information about recognizing scams is available at reginapolice.ca/recognize-a-scam/.